Daughter of Julianne Jaillet hopes advances in DNA testing will help solve her mother’s cold case

In June 1985, 36-year-old Julianne Jaillet disappeared, leaving behind 10-year-old daughter, Tammy McAdams. More than four decades later, Tammy is still hoping to learn what happened to her mother. Tammy and her mom were close. Julianne was a single mom and Tammy was her only child. Tammy says they loved spending time together, shopping, doing “all the fun things you do with your mom.” They lived in Washington and moved a couple of times during Tammy’s childhood, including from Ballard to Lynnwood to live with Julianne’s boyfriend, Ian Jaillet. Tammy says she remembers living there for about a year. “I guess things got bad between them, and then they split up, and he pretty much left us stranded,” Tammy told Dateline. “My grandparents went and got us.” Tammy says Julianne and Ian had an on-and-off relationship. In 1985, Julianne was back together with Ian, and the two quietly got married that January. Tammy stayed with her grandparents because she was in school and her mom worked nights in a nursing home. “My grandparents said, ‘OK, we’re gonna keep her till the end of the school year and let you work nights because, you know, you don’t have someone to watch her when it’s just you and her,’” Tammy told Dateline. Tammy did not see her mom every day during the school year. Her mom’s house was about 30 minutes away from her grandparents’ place. Tammy last saw her mom on May 25. “My last memory was really good,” she shared. They went shopping at Bellevue Square and had lunch together. Tammy says she remembers going back to her mom’s house in Bellevue for a bit, where she lived with Ian. “I did not care for him, so I did not want to stay the night,” Tammy said. She was driven back to her grandparents’ house. In June, Julianne’s family learned she was missing. Tammy’s grandparents sat her down to share the news. “It was just confusing,” Tammy said. “I was a young girl.” Tammy was sent to Minnesota to live with her aunt and uncle for the summer, while her grandparents dug into Julianne’s disappearance. “I think my family just kept me sort of distracted and busy,” Tammy explained. “I don’t think I was old enough to really comprehend what was happening.” Tammy’s aunt Margaret was the last family member known to have spoken with Julianne. The two talked on the phone after Margaret received a letter from Julianne in the mail. “She said my mom was happy. She was in a new home with Ian,” Tammy said. “She was buying new furniture.” Tammy now has that letter. According to Tammy, who says she has read her mom’s case file, Ian told authorities that he and Julianne got into an argument, and she took off. “June 1st is the date he claims they had the heated argument,” Tammy said. “My aunt said she spoke with her a few days before that.” Tammy says her mom did not drive, and doesn’t know where Julianne would have gone on her own. She also says that her grandparents convinced Ian to call the police and report Julianne missing. Ian reported Julianne missing to the Bellevue Police Department on June 18, more than two weeks after he said they had argued and Julianne left. Dateline contacted the Bellevue Police Department for an interview regarding Julianne’s case. The interview request was declined. Bellevue PD provided Dateline with the initial missing persons report and supplemental reports in Julianne’s case file. According to the missing persons report, Ian stated that he and Julianne got into a fight and she left on June 1, around 1:30 a.m., telling him “that she was never coming back.” He stated that Julianne had left before, “but never this long.” The report states that Julianne left on foot, and that one suitcase and her clothes were gone. However, when a Bellevue PD detective spoke to Ian on the phone on June 20, Ian told the detective “he left the house and upon his return [Julianne] had left,” the detective wrote in the police report. “I asked the reason for the delay in making the report. He stated he had kept thinking she would return.” Dateline reached out to Ian Jaillet about Julianne’s disappearance and has not yet received a response. According to the police report, in 1986, Ian was asked if he was responsible for his wife’s disappearance. He denied any responsibility. The report states that in April of that year, Ian “submitted to a polygraph examination” and the “result of the test was inconclusive.” The report states that Bellevue PD detectives met with Ian in 2009 and again asked him if he had any involvement in his wife’s disappearance. “I asked Ian if he had murdered Julianne and he said that he did not. I asked him if he had any knowledge whatsoever as to where Julianne was and he said that he did not,” the detective assigned to the case at the time wrote in the report. Two weeks after Julianne vanished, her purse containing some personal items was found at the MGM Grand Hotel in Reno, Nevada. According to the police report, “the items were found on 06-14-85 by an unknown guest on the 22nd floor. The items were sitting on a couch in the hallway.” Bellevue PD spoke on the phone with the hotel’s head of security. The report continues, “In checking his records in June from the 12th to the 17th, he has no record of the missing person being registered at the hotel.” According to the police report, the purse and its contents were shipped back to Washington on June 18. Tammy says most of the purse’s contents were typical: an ID card, glasses, lipstick. “Nothing that would make me think she went out of town,” she said. “But there was a pair of underwear,” Tammy told Dateline. “I mean, that’s just not -- not normal.” According to the police report, the purse and its contents were obtained from Ian in July 1985 and placed into evidence. In 2002, a Bellevue PD detective sent items from the purse to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab for DNA extraction. DNA was later taken from Tammy, her grandmother, and Ian. The crime lab used Tammy’s DNA to confirm that the items in the purse belonged to Julianne. Julianne’s DNA profile was subsequently uploaded to CODIS. Tammy is hopeful that DNA will help untangle her mother’s case. “I’m so thankful for technology,” Tammy said. “The advancement in DNA is amazing.” Over the years, Bellevue PD has compared Julianne’s DNA to multiple Jane Does in the area. No matches have been made, according to the police report. As the decades passed, Tammy took up her family’s push for answers. When she was in college, Tammy became the one asking the questions. “I’ve been working on it for, like, 30 years myself,” she said. Tammy’s grandmother died in 2020, without knowing what happened to her daughter. Tammy says one of the last conversations she had with her grandmother was about how much she missed Julianne. Tammy’s aunt Margaret has also died. In 2023, Tammy started sharing her mom’s story on TikTok to gather support and increase attention. “I would say, at first, it was a little tough for me. I think I can be private at times,” she shared. But she says posting has helped her come out of her shell and has connected her with others in similar situations. “Social media, I think, offers a lot of family,” she said. “People will contact you and give you even more, you know, ideas, suggestions.” Another resource for Tammy has been Light the Way, a volunteer-led organization that supports families whose loved one is missing or whose homicide is unresolved. Shayna Richard founded the Light the Way Missing Persons Advocacy Project in 2020. Light the Way has featured dozens of cases, including Julianne’s. “A big part of what we do, especially in those older, unresolved, long-term missing cases like Julianne, is we provide awareness opportunities. Whether that’s billboards, flyers, introductions to podcasters,” Shayna told Dateline. Shayna says she was an avid true crime consumer before creating Light the Way and was drawn to advocacy through the missing persons cases of Gabby Petito and Oakley Carlson. Shayna says those cases introduced her to the large online presence of families with missing loved ones. “Gabby’s story kind of brought me to that community of people,” she said. “And through Oakley’s story, I learned how to be an advocate.” Light the Way meets families where they are in the process. “It’s not an easy road at all for families to navigate. There’s no booklet,” Shayna said. “You can always reach out to us.” Tammy’s years of digging have led her to develop theories about what happened to Julianne, but no definitive answers. She says she’ll keep working on her mother’s case until it’s solved. She has no plans to give up. “I see it as a cold case; I just don’t have the closure of her remains,” she said. “They might not ever be found, but I still have hope.” She also holds on to the memory of her mother’s smile and her love of life. At the time of her disappearance, Julianne was 5’7” and 125 lbs., with reddish-brown hair and green eyes. She would be 77 years old today. If you have information about Julianne’s case, please call the Bellevue Police Department at 425-452-6917 or the non-emergency line at 425-577-5656. You can email the department at bellevuepd@bellevuewa.gov. If you have a story to share with Dateline, please submit it here.